Eccentric Scot who helped to found a whisky dynasty in Japan

Share via

The story of Masataka Taketsuru and Rita Cowan — and the birth of Japanese whisky — is to be made into a TV series

Tom Knowles

Last updated at 6:55PM, May 18 2014

She is considered the mother of Japanese whisky and credited with helping to
create what is now one of the most important distilleries in the world, yet
in her native Scotland Rita Cowan is barely known.

Her journey from being a doctor’s daughter in a small town near Glasgow to
becoming the wife of Masataka Taketsuru, the founder of Nikka Whisky, the
Japanese equivalent of Jack Daniels, is so captivating that it is being made
into a 150-episode television series in Japan. Yet outside of Japan most
have not heard of Nikka whisky, which has been available on the export